Abstract
In the 1860s, William Stanley Jevons wrote a book, The Coal Question.1 and a number of papers about the British coal industry. It was a time when the industry was expanding fast — annual output averaged about 70 million tonnes in the 1850s but over 100 million tonnes in the 1860s (Figure 2.1). So fast indeed was the expansion that a number of scientists expressed fears that Britain’s mines would be exhausted in the foreseeable future. Jevons’ perceptive writings put such fears in their proper place. He derided the views of those who:
... entertain a vague notion that some day our coal seams will be found emptied to the bottom, and swept clean like a coal-cellar.3
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Notes and References
Jevons, W S, 1865, The Coal Question, Macmillan, London.
Black, R D C, 1981, Collected Papers of WS Jevons, Volume VII, Papers III, IV and V, Macmillan, London.
Department of Energy, Digest of UK Energy Statistics, (annual) and Energy Trends, (monthly), HMSO, London.
National Coal Board, 1974, Plan for Coal, London.
Department of Energy, 1977, Coal for the Future, London.
Robinson, C, and Marshall, E, 1981, What Future for British Coal?, Hobart Paper 89, Institute of Economic Affairs, London.
The Joint Understanding is explained in Robinson, C and Sykes, A, 1987, Privatise Coal, Policy Study No 85, Centre for Policy Studies, London.
For example, in Robinson, C and Marshall, E, The Coal Industry and Coal Policy in Britain, in House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities, 1983, Session 1983–84, 10th Report, European Community Coal Policy, November, HMSO, London; Robinson, C and Marshall, E, 1985, Can Coal be Saved?, Hobart Paper 105, Institute of Economic Affairs, London; Robinson, C, 1987, ‘A Liberalised Coal Market?’, Lloyds Bank Review, April; Robinson, C, and Sykes, A, 1987, Privatise Coal, Policy Study 85, Centre for Policy Studies, London; and Robinson, C, 1989, ‘Privatising the Energy Industries’, in Veljanovski, C (ed), Privatisation and Competition, Hobart Paperback 28, Institute of Economic Affairs, London.
For example, in Robinson, C and Marshall, E, The Coal Industry and Coal Policy in Britain, in House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities, 1983, Session 1983–84, 10th Report, European Community Coal Policy, November, HMSO, London
Robinson, C and Marshall, E, 1985, Can Coal be Saved?, Hobart Paper 105, Institute of Economic Affairs, London
Robinson, C, 1987, ‘A Liberalised Coal Market?’, Lloyds Bank Review, April
Robinson, C, and Sykes, A, 1987, Privatise Coal, Policy Study 85, Centre for Policy Studies, London; and
Robinson, C, 1989, ‘Privatising the Energy Industries’, in Veljanovski, C (ed), Privatisation and Competition, Hobart Paperback 28, Institute of Economic Affairs, London
Robinson, C, 1989, Electricity Privatisation; What future now for British coal?’, Energy Policy, February.
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© 1991 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Robinson, C. (1991). Coal Liberalisation: Retrospect and Prospect. In: Pearson, P. (eds) Prospects for British Coal. Surrey Energy Economics Centre. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-11508-2_2
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